9 posts tagged “cold”

I have a miserable sinus cold thing going on and I can not sleep because of it so I am trying to catch up on some of my neighbors and also try to update my blog.

Today is my Dad's birthday. We are supposed to be going out to lunch as his birthday celebration. I am not sure if we will be going bowling this year, because he has invited some friends along for his lunch. Normally we go bowling on his birthday and on father's day because this is his hobby.

I am not sure if I am going to be able to make it to lunch though because of this cold. I was looking forward to it too, Dad picked a different restaurant to go to instead of his usual favorite. It is the same style of food just a different chain.

Right now the way I feel I would not go. I have a clogged up head, a sore throat, and no voice. My family would not care so much about the lack of voice, they would even have fun at my expense, I am used to it because every time I get a sinus cold I end up with laryngitis. The sore throat would worry my family and they would prefer I stay home and rest. So I will see how it goes.

This week has been pretty dull for me because I am not working right now. We, my roommate and I, had our little mini movie marathon on New Year's Eve. We long ago decided to forgo the crazy partying that usually goes on, especially the drunk drivers after the parties. Instead we get some movies and watch them through the night with snacks and have a relaxing time. This year we had a little extra entertainment with our movies because the DVD player kept acting up. Fortunately we were not watching movies that we had never seen so we just laughed at the frustration of fighting with the DVD player.

Last weekend we went to see Jeff Dunham perform live. It was a Sunday night performance but it did not run too late. We made sure to go out to eat before the show so that we were not tempted to buy any snacks at the show. I also made sure not to have anything to drink so that I would not end up choking on it while laughing. I enjoyed the fact that he made sure to change his routine a bit to fit the area he was playing. He use the names of local communities and counties instead of just being vague.

Christmas was good. Lots of fun visiting with the family, great food made by mom, lots of gifts.

I managed to read my two new books already. I got R.G. Ryan's book 'Snapshots at St. Arbucks' and Patricia Volonakis Davis's book 'Harlot's Sauce'. I enjoyed them both.

We had our power go out twice in the last few weeks, once was before Christmas if I remember correctly and once the Saturday after Christmas. The first time was due to something at our transformer out on the pole so it was only us out of power it lasted just a couple hours until they were able to get a truck out here to fix it. That Saturday one was because of the weather and the whole area was out of power for 6 hours, fortunately it was not freezing cold that day.

We also almost ran out of propane this past weekend. I had checked the tank gauge a couple weeks before but it must have been slightly froze because it said that we had about 40%. Sunday before we left for the show I smelled the odor they put in propane, which indicates a leak of that the tank it low so I checked the gauge and it said that we had only 5%. When we got back from the show I made sure to turn the furnace down way low and the water heater too in order to conserve what propane we had left. I was again lucky that it was not one of the freezing days we have been getting. The propane driver was able to get here late Monday afternoon and filled the tank back up to 80%. That should last us quite a while unless when winter finally settles in, it is bitterly cold.

This weather we have been having recently in Missouri is really playing havoc on everyone's immune system. Mine in particular. The congestion in my sinuses is putting pressure on my ears which in turn is messing with my equilibrium. I get dizzy just sitting still in my chair. Today started at about the high temperature for the day and has been steadily dropping all day. The wind has picked up too. It is supposed to be around 19 F tonight. That makes it hard for this little 100 year old house to hold it's heat. It is not so bad when it is not very blustery, but when the wind blows so does the heat in the house.

I have missed 2 days of work because of this dang cold. I can not miss anymore. I am going to have to tough it up and go to work tomorrow. Fortunately I know that my current boss is understanding about not having much energy when one is sick.

Today I got to talk to an old friend that I do not get to talk to very often. It was nice to talk to him. I like to hear what he has been doing because it makes me feel more connected even though we are several states apart. He had more new things to talk about than I did. I basically said that things are going pretty much the same for me - I am still working - I have another sinus allergy cold thing going on (I get them at least 3 times a year) - I still live the same place - I still have the same friends - I still am single - etc. etc. etc.

As you may have guessed, after talking to him I felt kind of lame because I did not have anything exciting to talk about, like his first solo fight in a helicopter (he has been taking lessons). He has a girlfriend right now and I am single ( that one bothers me in more ways than one but that is for another post someday, or not).

So I was kind of feeling a little blue as I was driving home (his phone call had caught me waiting at Walgreen's for a prescription to be filled). I started thinking about all the things I have not done in the past and started feeling like the future is going to full of missed opportunities too. The more I thought about that the more I got angry with my self. I was already writing off the future as if it was the past, when all I can really do is live in the present. I can have plans and dreams but I also need to live one day at a time, not skip over them as if they are not valuable. Each day is valuable simply for the fact that they are one more day I got to live, there are plenty of people that don't get to live as long as I have (not to say that I am old, but that is the point, I am not old and yet compared to some people my life is long)

So I think I have sufficiently scolded myself for the night and I am going to take some of my new meds for my redundant sinus/head cold thing, and get to bed so that I can hopefully wake up to another day of living.

Well just spent the lovely (just at touch of sarcasm here) past 13 hours +/- with no power. This means no heat (even though I have gas heat the thermostat and ignition is electric), and no water because I have a well. To top it off he freezing rain was still coming down, along with tree limbs left and right.

You could literally stand at the door and listen to tree limbs snapping and cracking as they cascaded to the ground from the tops of trees in the woods to the right and left of the house. The house has gotten all the way down to 50 degrees F.

The power has finally returned for about 45 min now, but it is still flashing and dimming like it may go out again. I am hoping not, but since we are expected to get another half inch of freezing rain, I will not be too surprised if it does go out.

Cross your fingers for me.

Oh I would have gone out to take more pictures of the icicles but with a cold house to come back to instead of a warm one I was not very enthusiastic. Maybe tomorrow if the power stays on long enough to warm the house, I will get some cool ice shots.

okay just had another good flicker not sure if I like that going to have to get off line again.
 

Well my temperature is hovering between 99 and 100 so that is good, but I am not sure about going to work in the morning. (the last time I called in the boss told me to just go ahead and go back to days when I return).

The job is still just as cold, I still feel miserable, my sinuses are going crazy on me. I have tried flushing my ears with peroxide water to help clear some of the pressure out of them (sometimes this works but sometimes it does not do anything but make me dizzy). I do not want to loose my job, but I know they know people are getting sick on the job. I am not the only one that is going around sick. I just do not know if I am the only one that has stayed home this long with such a high fever.

If I take enough Robitussin to clear my head it makes me a space cadet. I have to keep taking the Tylenol to keep my fever from going back up (well I am doing that just to hedge my bets)

So I sit here and hesitate.

Okay this thought has been running through my head ever since I discovered that I have a fever (and yes I still have it).

Which is the right phrase?

Starve a cold, feed a fever

or

Feed a cold, starve a fever

Since I have nothing much of substance in my brain right now, that phrase keeps repeating itself over and over in both forms, so I thought I would try and find out which is right.

Okay and here is another question (guys can skip this one)
    Can a fever cause a person to have their period when they are not supposed to, not just spotting but a full blown period? actually I guess it would not have been the fever itself since I have only had that for a couple of days, but I have had a cold for several days now. I am on BC so I should not be having a period right now but I am and I did not know if it might be from the cold aggravating my body or if I should worry that I am developing fibroids again. It is still a few months before I am due for a wellness check up so if this does not clear up with my cold I am going to get an appointment.

Okay time for more Tylenol, Robitussin and bed rest. Oh and maybe some more juice.

Well my new job has managed to make me sick. Actually it is the weather that has made me sick, but since my job is exposing me to so much of it, I blame it.

My new job is at the new hotel at the local casino. Mind you the hotel is new which means that they do not even have all the floors built, much less any walls to speak of. What floors they do have are all covered in plastic. That basically helps with the wind but not the cold. They do have big huge construction size heaters on every other floor to help bring the temperature up some. They do some good, but there are still places where the ice does not even melt. To top it off the heaters really make the air even dryer than it all ready is being winter air. Add to that some construction dust and you have a lot of sore throats.

I have reached the point where my throat is not just scratchy but is actually very sore, I have a cough, a low grade fever, sinus congestion (aggravating my throat and my cough).

I am taking extra vitamin C to help keep me from getting really bad. I can not afford to be too sick to work.

As of yesterday (Saturday) I am working the night shift. We are working 10 hour days, which means that I work 5:30pm to 3:30am. I do not mind the night shift actually I prefer it, there are a lot less people getting in each other's way, traffic is non-existent, parking is easy to find. It just never seems as chaotic working nights.

I am going to try to get out of here a little early so that I can stop off at the store and get some cough drops, maybe even some of the Halls vitamin C drops (I find those to be really soothing on my sore throats).

Well I better get myself in gear.

Tuesday night I started getting worried because my cookie would not get up. I was only a little bit concerned at first, I figured I was probably expecting too much from an eleven year old cookie, so I decided to go about my business and come back to see there had been any movement. I spent most of the night checking every couple of hours to see if the blankets looked like they had been shuffled around or not. By morning I realized my cookie could not get up without assistance. This sent me into a bit of a panic, because I am not prepared to to handle giving up on my cookie yet.

My cookie is my 11 year old Lab/Border Collie mix. She is the first dog I got on my own after moving out of my parents' house. Because she is mixed with Border Collie she is not all black like a lab, so after much consideration my friends and I came up with the name Oreo for my cookie. Of course she has nicknames deriving from the name Oreo, like Cookie (as I am sure you guessed by now), Oreo Coookeee (when I am trying to get her wound-up), Cookie Monster (when she is a bit too wound-up), and Oreo! Cookie! (when she is trouble, lol). [The picture is not a great one (bad camera, bad lighting, bad shot, bad day, just plain not good) but it is my Oreo]

Well when I realized she was not just playing the 'I am an old lady' card, and just let me lay here; I called the vet and got an appointment. I never thought I would be so happy that my Cookie has a cold. I was so worried that she had gone from being 'old lady' wobbly to being a cookie full of cancer. (When growing up I watched my family dog go from spry old man to cancer victim in a flash). The doc listened to her heart and her lungs (lol he had to ask her to stop panting so he could hear better) and he checked her temperature it was 104 (I really need to get a new thermometer for the critters, I have misplaced the one we had). Then he told me 'this little lady has a very bad chest cold'. I had not even realized that she had a cold because she is so sedate these days and does not exert herself enough to cause a lot of coughing. I am thinking too that the cold got bad fast because of the poor amount of heat we had in the house while the propane line was being worked on. It was not freezing in the house or anything like that but it was cold enough to aggravate a body that was getting sick.

So now my Cookie is on antibiotics with lots of indoor bed rest. I also made sure to refill the Vicks' vaporizer and plug it in so that  there would be some more help for her lungs. Especially since it is possible we will be getting rain mixed with freezing rain later today and thru the rest of the weekend; nasty weather for a cold.

Now that it is about time for me to get moving and get things done for the day, I finally feel like I could actually fall asleep if I would lie down. I tried sleeping last night but all I did was toss and turn. As silly as it may sound one of the things that made it hard for me to sleep was my chapped lips. It was not the only thing just one of the contributing factors. With the temperature outside being below freezing the furnace was working even more than the last few days, this made the air in the house dry, thus my chapped lips. One of the other reasons I could not sleep was the fact that even though the furnace was running it was still pretty cold in the house. I apparently did not program the thermostat well enough to keep the house comfortable as well as economical. Even that should not have been too much of a reason for me to not sleep, because I have 5 lap dogs that sleep with me sometimes and I also have plenty of blankets available. I am not really sure exactly what made it so hard for me to sleep. Well maybe I do know. With all the problems we have had rain down on us my body can not make up its mind if I should be wound up or run down.

Oh well maybe after I put the dogs out (the big dogs not the little guys it is too cold for them), I might be able to sleep for a couple hours before I have to get cracking.